LEGACY HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS

The future of legacy-inspired developments

Johnny Clayton

James Cordery

Johnny joined Carter Jonas in 2018 to head up the masterplanning and urban design practice across the UK. Johnny is a masterplanner and urban designer, with a broad skills base and over 16 years of project experience encompassing conceptual design, masterplanning, urban design, detailed design and project implementation. His particular specialism and passion is for strategic land projects including new settlements, but also urban mixed-use regeneration schemes. Johnny is also a Chartered Landscape Architect.

James is a development partner in Carter Jonas’ Oxford office and advises landowners on navigating the challenging process of strategic planning.

Johnny and James are both involved in projects for which the central objective is the concept of landowner legacy. Here, they consider its future direction and influence.

Origins

The concept of legacy in new communities was conceived and developed by The Prince’s Foundation (now The King’s Foundation) and first put into practice on the then Prince’s own land – initially at Poundbury and more latterly Nansledan and in a range of other projects throughout the UK.

Now as its founder’s duties have expanded considerably, will the legacy movement continue to evolve, and how?

Legacy has become an umbrella term which touches on a variety of aspects relating to the delivery of a development. What differentiates a ‘legacy’ scheme is a clearly defined core of objectives which help underscore quality. These can be wide-ranging – for example achieving a high level of biodiversity net gain, community value and active travel.

Another important characteristic of such schemes is that these principles are embedded early on. Because the impact of legacy is so integral to sense of place and the quality of the scheme as a whole - especially the public realm – it is fundamental at the masterplanning stages.

Modern homes in a legacy-inspired development, emphasizing quality of design and materials.

Many early legacy schemes took their objectives directly from guidance produced by The Prince’s Foundation. But landowners’ objectives are inevitably diverse and so too are the opportunities and limitations within any one legacy-inspired development. Consequently Carter Jonas works with landowners to create a bespoke set of objectives for each scheme.

“For the last twenty years, much of my work has been what would be referred to as ‘legacy’ schemes,” says Johnny. “Earlier on they tended to be major regeneration schemes on land owned by landed estates in major UK cities including London and Birmingham. But more recently this has extended geographically.”

So how is legacy embedded in this instance? There’s a focus on quality in the very early stages. At the masterplanning stage, we have provided substantial detail on the townscape and the way in which vernacular styles of architecture are maintained on the new development. There has also been a greater focus than usual on how appropriate levels of density can be achieved.

Throughout the process, Johnny’s team works closely with the landowner, land promotor and developer. In many cases, the landowner will continue to be involved as the leaseholder, so will remain responsible for the maintenance of the new community.

Value added

James’ work in the context of legacy has been both as a valuer and as an agent. As such, he sees the application of legacy principles from the point of view of the landowner.

“The legacy approach enables landowner to create a development, often on their own doorstep, which they are proud of, and which is an investment in the local community; but added to that, legacy-inspired schemes provide added value. The financial return may be delayed because of the detail that’s required at an early stage, but ultimately a higher quality scheme will be created and this will invariably attract a higher price.

“It’s also a facilitator. I’m currently working with a private landowner who is looking to maximise value from a site, but it’s constrained by the fact that it’s located within an AONB. Often a scheme in this location wouldn’t get planning consent, but the chances will be substantially increased by the development being community-led and design-led. From a completely cynical point of view, legacy can be used as risk mitigation.

“Similarly in my work with St Modwen in Wantage, I’ve seen how increased value invested in placemaking from the early stages of development has been fundamental to increased profit – both for the landowner and the developer.”

Poundbury

While the preconceived idea of legacy-led schemes tends to be one of tradition – something that has (specifically in the context of Poundbury) been criticised as pastiche. But St Modwen’s work dispels that image: these are modern homes in a modern context. What differentiates them from other new developments is the quality, not only of placemaking, but of design and materials.

But communities such as these are unquestionably the product of the ideas that led to Poundbury and other early examples.

“The work of The Prince’s Foundation has been fundamental in defining legacy and establishing an initial set of principles,” says Johnny. “But inevitably legacy is evolving and as it expands the principles have to adapt.

“Many developers have benefited from the site-specific design and building manual which was created for Poundbury, but its starting point was a very thorough assessment of the existing location which the new development took inspiration from. That only really works on a scheme attached to an existing historic town or village.”

It is clear that schemes established on legacy principles invariably deliver quality schemes. But is this the direction in which all new developments are heading? James and Johnny agree that the legacy movement is grow in popularity, and increasingly so as schemes such as Winterbourne Fields come to fruition.